Start a Local LGBTQ Humanist Group

The American Humanist Association has over 120 local humanist chapters across the country, many interested in starting an LGBTQ Humanist Alliance Group. To find a chapter near you, click on the map below. Can’t find a group near you? Start your own!

Building a Local AHA LGBTQ Humanist Alliance

We’re building a future where everyone is free to be themselves in every aspect of their lives. Despite all the progress this country’s made to end discrimination, countless people from LGBTQ communities continue to endure hardships simply for existing outside cisgendered-heteronormativity. We are still subject to social dispossession when it comes to housing, healthcare, employment, criminalization, immigration, and basic human rights.

Because of this, it’s necessary to fight for freedom from oppressive social systems until we finally reach a point where LGBTQ people are fully equal and liberated in our society.

The AHA’s LGBTQ Humanist Alliance is training and mobilizing humanist activists across our nation to evolve the way our society thinks about and treats people from LGBTQ communities. If you are ready and willing to do your part to challenge oppression in order to bring about liberation for all people, check out the following information on how you can be part of the solution.

Here are some tips to get started:

Think about the potential involvement of your local humanist group on a sliding scale of involvement in LGBTQ issues. On the one end, your group could volunteer locally, or become involved in nationally organized activist efforts under the banner of the LGBTQ Humanist Alliance.

You don’t need to do all this work alone! Find others in your community, LGBTQ or Humanist or both to assist you in brainstorming about and planning this first meeting.

Consider co-hosting an event with a local gay group. You could have a speaker on gay rights before the planning meeting, to attract the interested public.

Apply for program grants. The American Humanist Association provide local AHA groups with grants for advertising, renting space, and other expenses associated with hosting or co-hosting a seed event.

Before the meeting is planned, here are some questions to consider:

What allies in my community can help start this project?

When is the best time and date to have the meeting? Could it be attached to the end of the regular humanist meeting?

Is there enough potential interest to host a one-off event?

What would the structure of this meeting look like?

Potential questions to be considered at the meeting:

What is the state of membership of our local humanist group? Could bringing in LGBTQ members help grow our group?

Are there any barriers in our humanist community to more LGBTQ work? If so, how can we fix them?

What sort of work does our humanist community feel comfortable engaging in? Could this bring attention to LGBTQ rights and humanism?

Could involvement of Humanists in LGBTQ issues have an impact on local LGBTQ rights? How? Where?

Would a LGBTQ Humanist Alliance be viable in our community?

As you are thinking about what questions to bring up at your meeting, you should begin to get an idea of how you can structure a meeting around this discussion. As a member of a local humanist group, I’m sure you have experience planning meetings.